M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The prophet Ahijah and King Jeroboam

14 At that time, Jeroboam's son Abijah became ill. ² So Jeroboam said to his wife, ‘Change what you look like so that people will not recognize you as my wife. Then go to Shiloh. The prophet Ahijah lives there.^[a] He told me that I would rule the nation of Israel. ³ Take ten loaves of bread with you. Also take some cakes and a pot of honey. When you visit Ahijah, he will tell you what will happen to our son.’

⁴ Jeroboam's wife did what he told her to do. She went to Ahijah's house in Shiloh. Ahijah could not see because he was very old. ⁵ But the Lord had said to Ahijah, ‘Jeroboam's wife will come to visit you. Her son is ill and she will ask you what will happen to him. I will tell you what to say to her. When she comes, she will pretend that she is not the king's wife.’

⁶ Then Ahijah heard her as she walked through the door of his house. He said, ‘Come in, Jeroboam's wife! I know who you are, so do not pretend to be somebody else. The Lord has given me bad news to tell you. ⁷ Go and say to Jeroboam, “This is what the Lord, Israel's God, says to you: I chose you from among my people, the Israelites, and I made you their ruler. ⁸ I took Israel's kingdom away from David's family and I gave it to you. But you have not served me faithfully as my servant David did. He obeyed my commands. He was faithful to me and he always did the things that I say are right. ⁹ But you have done more evil things than any of the kings who lived before you. You have made me very angry. You have used metal to make images of other gods that you could worship. You have turned away from me. ¹⁰ Because of this, I will bring great trouble to Jeroboam's family. I will kill every male among his descendants in Israel, whoever they are. I will completely destroy Jeroboam's family, like someone burns a heap of rubbish! ¹¹ If they die in the city, dogs will eat their bodies. If they die in the country, vultures will eat them. This is what the Lord has said will happen!”

¹² But you, Jeroboam's wife, should go back home now. As soon as you arrive back in the city, the boy will die. ¹³ All Israel will cry because of his death and they will bury him. He is the only person from Jeroboam's family that they will bury properly. He is the only one among Jeroboam's descendants who has pleased the Lord, Israel's God. ¹⁴ The Lord himself will choose another king to rule Israel. That king will destroy Jeroboam's family. This will happen very soon, even today! ¹⁵ The Lord will attack the nation of Israel. He will shake it, as the wind shakes a reed that is growing in a stream. The Lord will remove the Israelites from this good land that he gave to their ancestors. He will take them to places beyond the Euphrates river. They made Asherah poles to worship, so the Lord became very angry with them. ¹⁶ He will put Israel under the power of its enemies because of Jeroboam's sins. Jeroboam also caused Israel's people to do bad things.’

¹⁷ Then Jeroboam's wife left Ahijah's house. She went back to Tirzah. When she walked through the door of her house, the boy died. ¹⁸ They buried him and all the Israelites cried because of his death. The Lord had told his servant the prophet Ahijah what would happen. And that is what happened.

King Jeroboam dies

¹⁹ The other things that happened while Jeroboam was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Israel's kings’. It tells about the battles that Jeroboam fought and how he ruled as king. ²⁰ Jeroboam ruled as king for 22 years. Then he died and they buried him beside his ancestors. His son Nadab became king after him.

King Rehoboam dies

²¹ King Solomon's son, Rehoboam, ruled Judah as king. He was 41 years old when he became king. He ruled for 17 years in Jerusalem. That was the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel. He chose it as the place where people would give honour to his name. Rehoboam's mother was an Ammonite woman. Her name was Naamah.

²² The people of Judah did things that the Lord said were evil. Their sins caused the Lord to be very angry. They did worse things than their ancestors had done. ²³ They built altars on the hills for themselves. They put up stone pillars and Asherah poles to worship. They did this on every high hill and under every big tree. ²⁴ In Judah there were even temples which had male prostitutes. The people of Judah did the same evil things as the Canaanite nations did. The Lord had chased those people out of the land so that the Israelites could live there.

²⁵ In the fifth year that Rehoboam was king, King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. ²⁶ He took away the valuable things that were in the Lord's temple and in the king's palace. He took everything for himself. That included the gold shields that King Solomon had made. ²⁷ So Rehoboam used bronze to make other shields instead. He gave them to the officers of his own soldiers. These soldiers stood as guards at the entrance of the king's palace. ²⁸ Every time that the king went to the Lord's temple, the guards carried the shields. After that, they took them back to the guards' room where they stored them.

²⁹ The other things that happened while Rehoboam was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Judah's kings’. It tells about everything that King Rehoboam did. ³⁰ There was always a war between the armies of Rehoboam and Jeroboam. ³¹ Rehoboam died and they buried him beside his ancestors in the City of David. Rehoboam's mother was an Ammonite woman. Her name was Naamah. Rehoboam's son Abijah became king after him.

Paul and Timothy say ‘Hello’

1 This letter is from me, Paul. God chose me to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. Our friend Timothy is here with me while I write.

² We are writing to you, God's own people who live in Colossae. You are like brothers and sisters to us because you continue to believe in Christ.

I pray that God, our Father, will continue to help you. I pray that he will give you peace in your minds.

Paul thanks God for the believers

³ We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. ⁴ We thank God because people have told us good things about you. You continue to trust Christ Jesus. You also love all God's people. ⁵ You live like that because you hope to receive good things from God.^[a] You know that God has prepared those good things for you. He is keeping them safe in heaven. You learned that when people first told you God's true message, his good news.

⁶ You have heard this good news, like people all over the world have heard it. It has caused good results among you since the time when you heard it first. At that time, you understood the true message about how kind God really is. As a result, God is blessing you more and more, like he blesses his people everywhere. ⁷ It was our good friend Epaphras who first told you this good news. Like us, he is Christ's servant. He serves Christ on our behalf. ⁸ He has told us about the love that God's Spirit has given to you.

Paul prays that they will know God more and more

⁹ Because of all that, we have not stopped praying for you, ever since the day that we heard about you. We ask God that his Spirit will make you truly wise. He will help you to know clearly what he wants you to do. You will understand his true message. ¹⁰ Then you will be able to live in a way that the Lord wants you to live. Everything that you do will please him. We pray that all these good things will have good results. We pray that you will know God better and better. ¹¹ God rules from heaven with great power. We pray that he will make you strong with every kind of strength. Then, when troubles come, you can still be patient and strong. ¹² You will be able to thank God, our Father, and be happy. God has prepared good things for his people to receive in heaven. Because God has included you among his people, you will also share those good things in the kingdom of light. ¹³ God has saved us from the dark kingdom where Satan rules.^[b] He has brought us into the kingdom of his Son, whom he loves. ¹⁴ God's Son, Jesus, paid the price for our sins and made us free. Yes, God has forgiven us.^[c]

Who God's Son, Jesus Christ, is

¹⁵ We cannot see God. But Jesus Christ shows us completely who God is. Even before God made anything, Jesus was already there as God's Son who rules everything. ¹⁶ When God created everything, it was his Son who did it. His Son made everything that is on earth and in heaven. He created everything that we can see, as well as the things that we cannot see. He made rulers and leaders. He made everything that has power and authority. God gave his Son the authority to create everything, so that his Son would receive praise. ¹⁷ God's Son was there before anything else was there. And now he causes everything to continue in its proper place. ¹⁸ The church is like Christ's body and he is its head.^[d] He is where it all begins. As God's special Son, he was the first person who became alive again after death.^[e] As a result, Christ is first and most important in all things.

¹⁹ God chose to put his nature in Christ completely. ²⁰ He decided that Christ would die on the cross as a sacrifice. In that way, God would bring all things back to himself. Then everything could live in peace with God. That includes everything on the earth and everything in heaven.

²¹ As for you, you were far away from God at one time. You thought bad things and you did bad things. As a result, you were God's enemies. ²² But now you have become God's friends. This happened because Christ's human body died on the cross. As a result, God has brought you to himself. As you stand in front of him, you are completely good and clean inside. He sees nothing in you that is bad.

²³ But you must continue to believe God's true message. Do not turn away from it. Continue to trust God, as you did when you first heard the good news. People have told this good news to everyone all over the world. And God has chosen me, Paul, as his servant to tell this good news.

Paul's work for Christ's people

²⁴ At this time, I am suffering on your behalf, but I am still happy. Christ himself suffered on behalf of his people, the church. Now, while I live in my human body, I also suffer. I continue to receive the pain that Christ received, so that it may be complete.^[f] In that way, I help the church, which is like Christ's own body.

²⁵ I have become God's servant, so that I can help the church. God chose me to do that. He chose me to explain his message to you completely. ²⁶ That message is a secret that God hid from everyone before now. He hid it from all the people who lived in past times. But now he has shown this secret to his people. ²⁷ God wanted them to understand how great this secret is. It shows that God will bless people who live in all countries of the world. This secret message is that Christ lives in you. And because of that, you know that you will live with God in heaven one day.

²⁸ That is why we tell everyone the message about Christ. God helps us to be very wise as we warn people and we teach them. We want every person who belongs to Christ to become complete, as God sees them. ²⁹ That is why I work very hard. Christ works powerfully in me to make me strong for this difficult work.

Rules about the temple

44 Then the man brought me back to the outside gate on the east side of the temple yard. But the gate was shut.

² The Lord said to me, ‘This gate must stay shut. Nobody may go through it. Nobody may open it again. The Lord, Israel's God, has gone through it. So it must stay shut. ³ Only Israel's ruler is allowed to sit in the gate's entrance. He may sit there to eat a holy meal in front of the Lord. He may only go in and out through the entrance room of that gate.’

⁴ Then the man took me through the north gate of the temple yard. We went to the front of the temple building. As I watched, I saw that the Lord's glory filled his temple. I bent down low with my face on the ground.

⁵ The Lord said to me, ‘Son of man, listen to what I tell you. Think carefully about it. These are the rules and laws about the Lord's temple. Understand about its entrances and the people who are allowed to go in and out of the temple. ⁶ Israel's people refuse to obey me. Say to them, “This is what the Almighty Lord says: Israel's people, you have done too many disgusting things! ⁷ You brought foreigners into my temple. They were not circumcised and they did not want to belong to me. In that way, you made my own temple unclean. You did that when you offered food, fat and blood to me there. You did not obey my covenant with you, when you did all these disgusting things. ⁸ You did not take care of my holy things yourselves. Instead you chose foreigners to take care of my holy place on your behalf. ⁹ This is what the Almighty Lord God says: No foreigner may go into my holy place if he is not circumcised and he does not want to obey me. Even if that foreigner lives among my people, the Israelites, he must not go in there.

¹⁰ As well as other Israelites, some Levite men turned away from me to worship idols. I will punish them as they deserve for their sin. ¹¹ But they may continue to serve me in the work of the temple. They can be guards at the temple gates. They can kill the animals that people bring for burnt offerings and other sacrifices. They can help the people who come to worship me. ¹² But I promise that I will punish them as they deserve for their sin. That is because they helped the people to worship their idols. In that way, they caused Israel's people to do bad things. I, the Almighty Lord, promise that I will punish them. ¹³ They must not come near to me to serve me as the priests do. They must not touch any of my holy things or the most holy offerings. Instead, they must be ashamed of the disgusting things that they have done. ¹⁴ But I will allow them to take care of the temple and all the ordinary work that is done there.

¹⁵ Only the priests who are descendants of Zadok, the Levite, may come near to me and serve me.^[a] When Israel's people turned away from me, only the priests of Zadok's family faithfully served me in my temple. So now Zadok's descendants may offer to me the fat and the blood of sacrifices. That is what the Almighty Lord says. ¹⁶ Only they can come into my holy place and serve me at the altar. They will do what I tell them to do.

¹⁷ When they come through the gates into the inside yard, they must wear linen clothes. The clothes that they wear while they serve me must not have any wool in them. They must wear linen clothes when they work at the gates of the inside yard or in the temple. ¹⁸ They must wear linen cloths around their heads. The trousers that they wear next to their skin must also be made of linen. They must not tie anything around their body that makes them sweat.^{[b] 19} Before they go out to the outside yard to meet the ordinary people, they must take off their special clothes. They must leave the clothes that they wore when they were serving me in one of the rooms in the holy place. They must put on other clothes before they go out. Then their special clothes will not touch the people and make them holy.

²⁰ The priests must not cut all the hair off their heads. They must not let it grow long either. They must keep their hair short. ²¹ When a priest goes into the inside yard of the temple, he must not drink anywine. ²² Priests must not marry a widow, or a woman whose husband has sent her away. They may only marry Israelite women who have never had sex. Or they may marry a widow whose husband had been a priest. ²³ They must teach my people that holy things are different from ordinary things. They must also show them how to know if something is clean or unclean.

²⁴ If people have an argument, the priests must be their judges. They must use my laws to decide who is right. They must obey the rules about my special festivals. They must respect Sabbath days as holy.

²⁵ A priest must not go near to a dead person. It would make him unclean. But if the dead person is his father, his mother, his son, his daughter, his brother or his sister who has not married, he may go near them. It makes him unclean but he may do that. ²⁶ After this, he must make himself clean. Then he must wait seven days. ²⁷ Then he can go into the inside yard of the temple to serve me there. On the day that he goes back there, he must make a sin offering for himself. That is what the Almighty Lord says.

²⁸ Do not give the priests their own land in Israel to keep for their descendants. I myself will be the gift that they receive. I will take care of them and their families. ²⁹ They will receive the grain offerings, the sin offerings and the guilt offerings. They are allowed to eat some of those offerings that the people bring. All the special things that people give to the Lord will belong to the priests. ³⁰ The best of all the first crops from people's land and all their special gifts will belong to the priests. You must also give to the priests the first flour that you make from your grain. Then I will bless the people who live in your house. ³¹ The priests must not eat any bird or any animal that people find dead. They must not eat anything that a wild animal has killed.” ’

The Lord rules as king!^[a]

God rules the world^[c]